Free Market Solutions work best

Just another person who thinks that free markets work well in the health care industry. It's the difference between theory and what actually happens. Good try for a classroom but a failure in the real world.....Wayne Rohde

Thu May 29, 2008

Letters to the editor: Thursday,
Free market solutions work best
Government mandates and regulations rarely fix anything. Such would be true with the proposed autism insurance coverage mandate. This law appears to fix a problem; it would actually worsen the problem of health care cost increases. The solution to autistic kids getting coverage for their condition is found in capitalism. If the Legislature wants to unleash real change in the health care for Oklahomans, it would roll back all mandates already put on insurance companies, not add more.

If you release insurance companies to provide any sort of coverage they feel the public would buy (no matter how bad or how good), the free-market system will work the problem out by itself. More competition and more choices for the consumer always lead to a better, cheaper product. This solution might sound heartless with all of the sob stories that you hear about families with autistic kids who have no health insurance, but it's actually the most compassionate thing to do because it will cause us to depend less on government and more on other people.

Oklahoma House Speaker Chris Benge's opposition to the autism mandate is the right position, and I hope that he will continue to take this conservative and responsible view of the government's proper role.

James Greiner, Oklahoma City

Legislation mandating coverage for autism failed to win approval in the 2008 session of the Legislature.